International workshop 'State-of-the-art Competence Center Programmes in Europe. Opportunities for EU-Russia science and technology collaboration' at the Higher School of Economics

On 28 May 2015, the Higher School of Economics hosted the international workshop 'State-of-the-art Competence Center Programmes in Europe. Opportunities for EU-Russia science and technology collaboration'. The workshop was held in the framework of the EU-Russian project BILAT-RUS-Advanced. The organisers from the Russian side were the Russian Technology Transfer Network and the Higher School of Economics.

BILAT-RUS Advanced is a Support Action funded by DG Research of the European Commission, which has the goals to support the EU-Russian policy dialogue on Science, Technology and Innovation, as well as to pave the way for sustainable EU-Russian cooperation towards the utilisation of R&D results. In this regard, BILAT-RUS Advanced pursues the goal of a deeper integration of Russian innovation actors into European networks. One of the selected groups of Russian innovation actors with high potential for further EU integration concerns the Russian Technology Competence Centers (CCs).

The workshop was aimed at exchanging information on best practices developed by EU Competence Centers, on the opportunities and tools to enlarge cooperation with Russian CCs. In the future this could lead to developing a number of joint activities by Russian and EU Competence Centers.

The participants presented the best practices of the competence centers' operation, exchanged the experience in the implementation of international research and technological projects, and discussed the opportunities for extension of cooperation.

In the first part of the workshop, the speakers overviewed the Russian and European innovation policies, their prospective directions and development tools, including the leading role of Competence Centers in its implementation. Richard Burger (EU Delegation to Russia) and Irina Kuklina (ICISTE) presented the newly agreed mechanism for funding the Russian participation in the Horizon 2020 projects.

The second part of the workshop was an intensive transnational brokerage session, where the high-tech companies, higher educational institutions and research instituted from Russia, Germany, Sweden, Austria and Turkey presented their experience and potential areas for cooperation. Common interests were identified for future cooperation and joint scientific and technological projects.